eInvoicing Workshop "Subcentral level implementation"
On 12 November 2019, the members of the European Multistakeholder Forum on eInvoicing (EMSFEI) and business association representatives particpated in a workshop on eInvoicing subcentral implementation.
Ms Irena Riviere-Osipov (eInvoicing Policy officer, DG GROW) and Mr David Blanchard (DG GROW G4, (acting) Head of Unit for Innovative and eProcurement) welcomed the participants and provided a state of play regaridng the transpositon of Directive2014/55/EU on the eInvoicing in public procurement and use of eInvoicing at the subcentral level. You can visit the Commission's eInvoicing country factsheets to see the situation in each Member State.
During the session, five speakers from different Member States shared their experiences and good practices regarding their achievements at the subcentral level.
- Justin Jager (Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, the Netherlands) highlighted that in the Netherlands, central and subcentral levels have different ways of adopting eInvoicing. At the subcentral level, there is no obligation for the eInvoicing solution to be the only system available. Hence, in some municipalities, paper and PDF are still used in addition to the eInvoicing system. At the central level, the Dutch Government only accepts eInvoices.
- Santiago Grana (General Secretariat of Digital Administration, Spain) stated that it is not mandatory for subcentral authorities to have a platform in place. But, the subcentral entities must exchange eInvoices using a web-portal or web-services. The Spanish government supports the take-up at subcentral level by providing a service portal for those administations where they complete a form, allowing them to use the service.
- Lars Engberg (DIGG, Sweden) pointed out that Sweden already had a system in place before the Directive came into force. Therefore, the goal is now to upgrade the system in place to comply with the European standard on eInvoicing. Today, 52.5% of exchanged eInvoices are connected to the PEPPOL network, at national and subcentral levels. Mr Engberg concluded that it is important to have an electronic trace of each step of the eProcurement chain.
- Pirjo Ilola (Ministry of Finance (State Treasury agency, Finland) underlined that municipalities are faced with a very high number of competing tasks, in which many issues, for example related to healthcare provision, are deemed as having a higher priority than eInvoicing.
- Sébastien Rabineau (AIFE (Ministère de l’Economie, ChorusPro, France) stated that as in France, the aim is to ensure the swift adoption at the subcentral level. France uses a central platform (Chorus Pro). They have around three thousand EDI and API partners directly connected to the platform. These partners work with the end-users who then find it very easy to submit eInvoices.
Following this best practices presentation and testimonies, Christian Vindinge Rasmussen and Martin Forsberg (DIGIT D3, CEF eInvoicing trainers) took the opportunity to respond to the points raised by the speakers and participants who shared the status and key highlights from their respective countries.
Through adoption of the European standard, the Commission encourages interoperability in the area of eInvoicing and eProcurement in Europe. In this sense, the participants underlined the importance of mutual cooperation. Mr Rasmussen and Mr Forsberg encouraged the audience to build their own knowledge and on-board new actors. The ultimate aim is for Europe's public sector to benefit from the eProcurement automation and secured payment processes to ensure the best quality public procurement (order matching, better pricing and deliveries), as well as enabeling quantitative monitoring through statistics.
The Commission supports the standards' implementation with the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) eInvoicing Building Block. CEF eInvoicing offers public and private sectors on-site eInvoicing Trainings and Workshops; supporting webinars, a User Community hosting online discussions, a Registry of supporting artefacts to implement European standard and a dedicated Conformance Testing Service.
In order to reach a larger panel of subcentral stakeholders, CEF organises an open, webinar on the 16 December 2019. This webinar will allow participants to share more extensively the highlights and findings from this (closed) workshop to a larger audience.
Registrations open soon. Subscribe to the CEF Building Blocks Bulletin for updates on CEF eInvoicing events and more